I actually did something interesting today after work. And saw another side of life. For those of you who didn't know, I was an Art History major in college (also a French major, although even though I declared that major first, it kind of became my secondary major, mostly because I was better at Art History), and so, although I chose a different life path (for now anyway; who knows if I'll end up being one of those mid-life career change people. I kind of have a hunch that I will, and may end up returning to the Art History fold), I am still interested in the world of art and visual culture, and try to keep at least a foot dipped in that pond, so to speak. Hence my trips to major museums in New York.
So, about a month ago, I found out that the Guggenheim Museum does these speaker series, "Conversations with Contemporary Artists." I thought that this would be a very cool event, since it would give me an opportunity to hear from and learn about artists currently working. I spent a lot of (in fact, all) my time in college studying art and visual culture from the past; kind of by the nature of how these things go, and the time constraints on a college course, the latest period I go to was the mid-1900s. And most of the research and on-my-own-time research and "looking into" of artistic areas, was ancient art and visual of culture, mostly of the ancient Near East and Egypt. Because that is my primary interest. But, this means that, other than a trip to the Pompidou Centre in France, I am very clueless about the current state of artistic production, who any of the bigs names are, etc. I am essentially stuck in the (way) past, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to educate myself. And, there was the added bonus of the cost of attendance being free, courtesy of my being a student. One of the few good things about being a student and having the magic Student I.D., is that I can still get in a lot of places at reduced-cost, or my favorite cost: nothing.
The artists in question were two working photographers, who are apparently very active and well known in the field. Full disclosure right now: of all the areas of visual production, photography is the one I know the least about. I never took a class in it, and have never really followed it the way I have other areas of artistic production. So I fully believe that these people are well known, just not to me. It was a moderated discussion with and between the two photographers, one British and one Dutch (who also apparently know each other from being in the field, prior to this. Not surprising, I guess), conducted by the Senior Curator of the Guggenheim's photography collection. The two artists were: Rineke Dijkstra, a female Dutch photographer who specializes in portraiture, and Paul Graham, a Brit who works primarily in Realism-type photography (he very explicitly rejected the term "documentary" in a response to a question that kind of bordered on a rant, which he admitted).
The talk was pretty interesting. It started with about 10 minutes for each artist to show slides of some of their work, and talk a little about it. Rineke seems to specialize in portraiture of I guess I would say "shy people." She herself, for someone who is apparently very well-known and highly regarded, is actually still quite demure-- Paul was ribbing her a bit about the fact that she still gets nervous asking people to be in her photos, and is just kind of non-forceful, introvert (which was a contrast to Paul's very extrovert personality)-- and she was saying that this comes out in her work, in that she usually picks as subjects not the most flamboyant people out on the street, but just everyday people, and usually not people who specifically ask her to be photographed. Paul specializes in series photography. Namely, he goes out into the world, and takes a series of photos of a moment in time, say a guy mowing a lawn. As he explained it, he wants to take photography away from the "melodrama" of subjects that it can sometimes go towards, and wants to create a sense of the passage of time-- not a lot of time, maybe 10 or 30 minutes-- in his photos. So each "work" is really a series of like 6 or 7-ish photos of different sizes and shapes, of the same subject over a few minutes.
Mostly it was interesting to hear about works from the artists themselves. As an academic in the field, you can kind of get bogged down in the theory and interpretation of a work or body of work, based off of your reading of a piece, or others' reading of the piece, or all of the above. It was kind of refreshing to hear answers to the "why" and "what" from the sources themselves (oh how I wish, as a law student now, I could do this with the Founding Fathers re: the Constitution). And actually, there was a little bit of tension that arose out of this. Namely, the moderator (and later, during a general Q & A, some of the audience members) seemed to ask them questions on certain things about their work, predicated on certain assumptions the moderator had or articulated to the artists, and sometimes the artists' response actually countered some of those assumptions. For example, in her introduction of Rineke, the moderator expressed Rineke's... I won't say work, but I guess general subject matter... in a kind of relation to the Dutch tradition of portraiture. But in one of her responses to one of the questions, Rineke stated that it was not until she was an adult-- and after she started working-- that she even went to the Rijksmuseum, which houses a lot of that traditional Dutch Masters work (and which I have actually been to). Granted, Rineke studied art at school in The Netherlands, so I think it would be wrong to say that she is not informed by or working within a Dutch artistic tradition. But it doesn't seem that her foray into photography, and portraiture in particular, was in any kind of direct response to, or line from, the Dutch tradition of portraiture. So it was moments like that which made the evening interesting, because it brought to light-- and sometimes contrast-- the divergences between art theory or history and art practice, what motivates artists to create what they create.
After the talk, there was a reception in the lobby. Not coincidentally, this talk is lining up with a mid-career retrospective of Rineke Dijkstra's work currently being shown at the Guggenheim. So, they had the gallery in which her stuff is being shown was open for viewing. I took a look at her work, which are very large portraits of one or a couple persons against a pretty neutral background. In particular I looked at the Beach Portraits, which were a series of portraits she took during the 1990s of people at beaches around the world. They were definitely good photographs-- better than I could ever hope to do-- but, full disclosure, I wasn't seeing what made them stand out. Like, why them? Why are her portraits, as opposed to another working, trained photographer's, so well known or considered important? I guess this is one of the main reasons I have never really been able to get into photography as much as other areas of art; it is hard for me to see what separates a good photo from a great photo, or an artistically important photo, from just an artistic photo. I suppose it might make more sense if I knew more about the genre, but from an admittedly more outsider perspective, I wasn't seeing whatever the "it" about her work is. Again, not trying to say her work was bad or that she is not a legitimate photographer, because clearly she has talent and is a very good photographer. I am just not understanding the line between a good photographer and a great one.
So, that was my cultural experience for the evening. It was interesting mix of people. The Guggenheim-- probably not unsurprisingly-- is located in the Upper East Side, across from Central Park. So there were a lot of people who I could guess were probably some kind of art-scene boosters: older, middle-aged or above, well-to-do society people. And then there were the people my age, "artsy" types (I only ever studied art, as to my disappointment I am not artistically-inclined) who are probably the people that will actually be doing photography. And some people clearly knew others in the crowd, and were chatting it up afterwards.
Unfortunately, photography of the event was strictly controlled, so all I have are a couple of photos I took of the program.
If you are in the greater New York City area, and interested in attending this series, more information can be found here: http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/calendar-and-events. All "Conversations with Contemporary Artists" occur at the Guggenheim, 1071 5th Avenue, NY, NY. They are generally held after-hours.
On an unrelated note, on the ride home from the Guggenheim tonight, I saw the following poster in the subway car:
In case you have been living under a rock, the city of New York, pushed mostly by Hier Mayor Bloomberg, is considering a ban on sodas and other kinds of surgery drinks over a certain size. This has lead to all Hell breaking loose, as the city is pretty evenly divided between the "health problems are caused by sugar and we have to pay for it with tax dollars so we should be able to control it" people, and the "what the hell is the government doing dictating what kinds of food people can eat, and in what quantities" people. If you have been paying any attention at all to my blog, I think you can guess which side I come down on.
But anyway, the battle for the hearts and minds of New Yorkers has begun, through what else, advertising. This particular ad is sponsored by the City of New York (you can tell because it has the stylized NYC logo that all public city stuff has attached to it), particularly Mayor Bloomberg's office. I can only imagine what a "healthy eating propaganda packet" is. And the other day, when I was seeing Rock of Ages, during the pre-show First-Look "entertainment," there was an ad narrated by a guy with a vaguely tough-guy Brooklyn accent, saying to the effect of: New Yorkers are tough, we do our own thing, we don't let anyone tell us where to live, when to sleep, how to live, so why are we letting the mayor tell us what we can and cannot drink? Accompanied by nice shots of different parts of New York, and different New Yorkers. As you can imagine, this was paid for by various beverage companies-- actually, I think some organization that is like a trade group or interest group for the beverage industry, comprised of the different companies.
All I have got to say is, wow. There are many problems in New York, the country, and the world, and this is what Bloomberg and everyone are fighting over. Wow humanity is sometimes a profoundly stupid race of beings. But, as I have always said, politicians like to focus on immediate, fairly minor, and generally quickly or easily resolvable/decidable problems, because they then don't have to really focus on the pressing, longer-term, and complicated problems, but can still look like they are "doing something." Oy.
So, that's it for tonight. Expect more posts this week, as I actually have a fair amount going on.
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